Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

Climbing to the moon

It’s spring break this week in Alabama, and so my good friend Lennie and I took our families up to Huntsville to the space and rocket center. While they were enjoying exploring all about space, Lennie and I drove on over to Keel Mountain to explore it and Green Mountain. We ended up climbing Keel Mountain 3 different ways and Green Mountain from both sides. Then I headed back up the front side of Keel one final time. The descents were awesome hitting 55mph+ on four different descents. My favorite of the day was definitely the Green Mountain west side descent which has a horizon drop-off (i.e., where you can’t see over the horizon) at >50mph. Exhilarating. It was REALLY flat though between the mountains, but it was worth it to enjoy time riding with Lennie and to explore 5 new climbs! I’ve posted the iBike data for each of the five different climbs. The last climb up Keel (Blowing Cave Rd) was by far the steepest at 26% max gradient, although the east side of Green Mountain was steeper for longer sustained sections.

KEEL MOUNTAIN SOUTH SIDE
Dist: 1.90 mi (0:15:27)
Energy: 217.0 kJ
Climbing: 855 ft (Strava CAT 3)
Min Avg Max
Power 0 234.1 442 W
Gravity -275 205.4 419 W
Speed 3.6 7.4 19.1 mi/h
Elev 479 938 1332 ft
Slope -4.4 8.39 22.8 %
Caden 34 61.6 98 rpm
HR 110 140.3 156 bpm
NP:245W IF:0.88 TSS:20 VI:1.05
CdA: 0.342 m^2; Crr: 0.0039
168 lbs; 3/20/2012 12:12 PM
87 degF; 1012 mbar
NOTES: This was a pretty steep climb. The 22.8%
max gradient was taking a diabolical inside path
on one of the switchbacks. This had a lot more
twisty sections and was a generally fun climb, but
tricky descent. The best part of the descent is
at the top as you are coming off the mountain
as the descent starts out with a switchback
that makes you feel like you are diving off
the top of the mountain for a free-fall.

GREEN MOUNTAIN WEST SIDE
Dist: 1.15 mi (0:11:07)
Energy: 169.5 kJ
Climbing: 690 ft (Strava CAT 3)
Min Avg Max
Power 76 254.1 371 W
Gravity 11 232.4 360 W
Speed 4.2 6.3 16.7 mi/h
Elev 462 805 1158 ft
Slope 0.2 11.20 23.9 %
Caden 41 56.1 96 rpm
HR 120 150.8 166 bpm
NP:263W IF:0.95 TSS:17 VI:1.03
CdA: 0.342 m^2; Crr: 0.0039
168 lbs; 3/20/2012 1:19 PM
92 degF; 1012 mbar
NOTES: I've heard that this is one of the toughest
climbs in Huntsville. It was definitely steep with some
sustained 20+% gradients. At the last turn before the top
there was a car that had rolled and looked like it was left
there to warn people of the danger of the descent. It
had police tape all over it with busted out windows. The
descent was amazingly fast but kinda dangerous. The
car that had rolled was in a decreasing radius turn that
almost caught me off. Then you have a really fast section
into a sweeping turn that you can pretty much hit without
brakes leading into the fastest part of the descent. YOU
HAVE TO HIT THE BRAKES HARD LEADING INTO THE LAST LEFT!
I knew it and hit the brakes hard but I still almost didn't
slow down enough.

GREEN MOUNTAIN EAST SIDE
Dist: 1.82 mi (0:15:25)
Energy: 222.7 kJ
Climbing: 829 ft (Strava CAT 3)
Min Avg Max
Power 0 240.8 358 W
Gravity -63 209.2 353 W
Speed 3.9 7.1 17.3 mi/h
Elev 458 853 1294 ft
Slope -1.2 8.88 18.4 %
Caden 5 59.8 92 rpm
HR 103 148.0 164 bpm
NP:253W IF:0.91 TSS:21 VI:1.05
CdA: 0.342 m^2; Crr: 0.0039
168 lbs; 3/20/2012 1:45 PM
87 degF; 1012 mbar
NOTES: I had climbed this once before, and it is still
really steep. It starts out with cement that has been
grated at the bottom to helps cars get traction. Then
it eases up a bit and rolls a bit on the way up. This
may be one of the coolest descents I've done with
the rollers coming at 50+mph so that you have at least
one horizon drop-off.

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2 thoughts on “Climbing to the moon”

What program are you using for the graphs? What is would like to do is be able to highlight sections of my ride. For example, I know where the start and stop point of the interval was, but didn’t press the lap button on my Garmin to make it an official lap. Do you know of any programs that can do that?

I’m using the iBike software for selecting portions of the ride to get the stats and to do the screen captures. Golden Cheetah will let you select a portion of the ride and create a lap, but I don’t think you could then get the lap back onto Strava. It will only show up in Golden Cheetah. It’s a pretty cool feature though so that you can see the stats of a portion of the ride. http://goldencheetah.org/